I like to dream of fancy cars. When it comes time to dip into the old savings I get real practical. If GM builds a smaller Duramax for the SUVs they will be a winner. The current one is too much engine for the Tahoe or Suburban. A V6 Duramax in a Tahoe would have all the torque and power you would need.
Again you need to do some serious research. You will find that the hybrids are the real culprits on your points. High pollution in manufacturing has been documented by Toyota the leading manufacturer of Hybrids. They use the following 1. exotic metals 2. rare earth materials 3. toxic chemicals & materials 4. more PM, SoX, NoX & CO2 during manufacturing process 5. higher recycle costs
I will not be drawn into a tirade of how misrepresented the mileage on these hybrids are. It does affect the actual amount of CO2 that you seem so worried about. If the powers would adopt diesel as the de facto fuel for our cars, trucks and SUVs we could cut both CO2 and fossil fuel usage. We could further cut fossil fuel usage with a realistic use of biodiesel. I don't think our government over the last 50 years have wanted to do anything that would cut into their tax base. The more we consume the more taxes we pay.
The bottom line is SUVs & PU Trucks are doing more to maintain our roads, bridges etc than these little throwaway cars we are being offered. It is also a fact that the longer a well maintained vehicle lasts the less it pollutes overall. Trucks have a much longer life span than most of todays cars.
I disagree. Neways it will go in the Suburban and Yukon XL, and maybe the ESV Slade. :shades: So it won't be to much engine and rumor has it they might make a hybrid diesel.
A smaller diesel in the Tahoe/Suburban could get close to 30 MPG on the highway. That V8 Duramax would be lucky to break 23-24 MPG. It is only needed if you tow a real big trailer. The big V8 diesel would not interest me at all in the Suburban or Tahoe.
The bottom line is SUVs & PU Trucks are doing more to maintain our roads, bridges etc than these little throwaway cars we are being offered. It is also a fact that the longer a well maintained vehicle lasts the less it pollutes overall. Trucks have a much longer life span than most of todays cars.
I'm not sure if you're being consistent here. You attack small fuel efficient vehicles for not paying their share in road taxes yet advocate diesels for being 30% more efficient. In terms of safety these small cars are making the roadways safer for the drivers of large vehicles.
I also don't think that SUVs/Trucks last longer from a mileage perspective. You do see a lot of old trucks on the road but they probably have relatively few miles on them compared to cars built the same year. I know that SUVs from a resale perspective depreciate very rapidly.
I agree pretty much with what you are saying. I was pointing out the fallacy in demonizing one vehicle over another. What is good for you may not be good for me. That is why we have choices. We just need more FE choices. The only way I can see that happening is with diesel, at least until battery technology makes major leaps. I love the idea of having an electric car. As the article points out, battery technology is not there yet. Not too many people will buy a $100k 2 seat car.
I'm not so sure that small cars make it safer for those in an SUV. Many dart in and out of traffic causing others to have accidents. Granted if my PU has an accident with a smaller car I will be less apt to get hurt. This is clearly shown in the Insurance Institutes ratings chart. The Camry and Accord are both significantly more injury prone than a full size PU or a Suburban.
I'm not so sure that small cars make it safer for those in an SUV. Many dart in and out of traffic causing others to have accidents.
That's probably true but it isn't the small car that's at fault its the driver. The argument could be made that many drivers of SUVs feel invincible, which leads to complacency. Again, the vehicle's not to blame, the driver is.
You can't rewrite the laws of physics so, with all other things equal, the vehicle with greater mass will be safer. Where does it end? At some point don't you have to say that its big enough. I also think that demographics plays a pretty big role in those loss statistics. If you compare the average driver of a Crown Victoria with a Kia Rio I suspect that there will be some striking differences in the groups. And if you now put all the Crown Vic drivers in Rios and vice versa those numbers would change dramatically.
Your right that very few people can afford a $100k electric 2 seater. I just think its encouraging that research is picking up in this area. I think that we've progressed far enough that the goal now seems clearly attainable.
Let's start with some basic math. The U.S. consumes about 322 billion gallons of gas a year. America's five biggest oil companies made a combined $69.3 billion in 2005. So, if a windfall profits tax took every penny of those profits, and all that money was returned to the public, the price at the pump would fall - all of five cents a gallon.
wants a hummer he should also have the b***s to pay the maximum tax
I believe he does by the fact that he is buying more gas per mile. If everyone buys a Prius or Civic hybrid who will pay the taxes to keep the roads up? Right now the hybrids are not paying their fair share.
Seems like a convoluted interpretation of fair share. Civic drivers/owners are "civic" minded in a sense by not being gluttonous in consuming oil. They and owners of similar vehicles could be rewarded by paying a very low yearly vehicle license energy surtax if it were implemented in all states. The revenue from this would be strictly for road building/maintenance and funding research on energy alternatives at US universities.
People would of course still be free to choose to drive any size vehicle they wanted as long as they paid a yearly license energy surtax. Perhaps surtax could be set up on some formula of vehicle weight and engine size. Those that can afford to squander fuel in large vehicles and/or low fuel efficiency can afford the extra taxes. Taxing curve would be exponential, not linear. As example, Civic could pay 100/year, Accord 200/year and Suburban with biggest V8 might be 1000/year. This would get people's attention to be "very" energy concious about selecting their next vehicle, would contribute to road const/mtce and would fund research on energy.
If the goal is to reduce the consumption of gas why do so many people favor indirect approaches like CAFE or a vehicle/displacement size tax? Tax the gas. It doesn't get any simpler than that. The person driving the Civic 30,000 miles a year is potentially a much worse offender than the guy who buys the Suburban and carpools 4 co-workers everyday. That is probably a very rare situation but why advocate a system that will allow it to happen? A gas tax will impact people in direct proportion to how much they use.
I recently read that fuel consumption was down 0.6% from last year. That doesn't sound like much but typically consumption rises 1 1/2% on a year to year basis. In addition sales of low mpg vehicles have declined significantly in comparison to that of more fuel efficient vehicles. Higher prices at the pump is a proven method for reducing consumption and its effects are immediate. We've tried gas guzzler taxes and CAFE and neither reduced consumption. Often times the simplest approach is the best.
All this bit about who pays the most road tax is ridicules. US roads have been bad for some times and getting worse. The US and most of the states and cities are not spending any money on keeping the roads repaired. The chuck holes are getting worse daily.
I agree that diesel is the way to go. The Liberty diesel is a start, but it has more engine than it needs thus getting less MPG than it should. GM & Ford are still pushing the SUV's and trucks. For work ok, but for running around town is costly. VW has the right idea with their Jetta TDI's but need a station wagon. I don't see why they couldn't make small SUV that get mileage close to the VW's.
What we really need are vehicles that A V E R A G E 3 0 M P G.
many drivers of SUVs feel invincible, which leads to complacency. Again, the vehicle's not to blame, the driver is.
You are absolutely right. I would say 99% of all accidents are driver error or carelessness.
I also am happy to see R&D picking up on EVs. I think they suffer a bit of the same bad rap that diesel has. When CA mandated EVs they pushed them onto the public faster than the technology could handle. They got a bad reputation and were scrapped. It cost us billions in research tax dollars. GM did the same thing with early attempts at converting gas engines to diesel. Ethanol is getting the same push that cannot help the cause.
Tax the gas. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
That is the simplest way. It is not necessarily the fairest way. Take the Lexus RX400h vs the RX330. Those two vehicles are about as equal as you can get. Yet the RX400h pays 25-35% less gas tax than the RX330 driver. We are talking about dollars to keep our roads and bridges in good condition. Why should the guy that has the extra bucks to buy a hybrid get off cheaper using the highways? Same goes for the Civic vs the Civic hybrid.
Why should the guy that has the extra bucks to buy a hybrid get off cheaper using the highways?
I understand what you're saying but its possible that the people paying less in fuel taxes are holding gas prices down for those that pay the most in fuel taxes. What if all the people currently paying less in fuel taxes started consuming more fuel so that they were now paying about the same. What would that do to the price at the pump?
I'm not opposed to a pay for use system when it comes to maintaining our roadways but I suspect that it will need to be completely overhauled in the future. With the current gas tax system EVs will pay nothing to use the roads. Plug-in hybrids will pay next to nothing. Right now their numbers aren't big enough to make much of an impact but that will eventually change. I think we should still have a gas tax but it should be not be viewed as a maintenance fee. It should be viewed the same as the tax on a pack of cigarettes. There should be another fee based purely on miles driven, which goes to road maintenance. Maybe some adjustment based on vehicle weight. Its my understanding that the heavier vehicles account for more road wear but I'm not sure about that.
You seem to understand what I am getting at. When the EVs first hit the road there was talk in the CA legislature about that subject. Then they went away and taxing by the mile did not come up again until the hybrids started rolling in. Oregon has a tax by the mile system that is being tested. If it looks feasible I imagine other states will jump on the bandwagon.
That has little to do with oil dependency. It does impact our highways and infrastructure. Your point about consumption being less may bring the price down. I don't know if it has much to do with it anymore. I was kind of expecting it to drop soon. Our price just took another 10 cent hit. I do feel sorry for those that are trying to make it here working in low paying jobs. I would hate to have to work for $9 an hour. I passed that wage level 35 years ago.
Yeah, I think that we are in agreement on this. If it is accepted that road construction and maintenance should be paid for by the users then basing the individual's cost on miles driven would be a fairer system. With that said, I have come to hate the word fair. Absolute fairness is unattainable and striving for this seems to inhibit progress.
I still think that there should be a sizeable tax on gasoline. It could come under the heading of a "sin tax". While I don't like the government using taxation to impose their sense of morality on the rest of us I do think that consuming gas is not in the public interest. So in this case I can accept it.
BTW, my desire for higher gas prices is actually somewhat selfish. I do want an EV and I think the higher the gas prices the sooner it will happen.
You won't have that smell when the sulfur is removed from diesel. That is completely the fault of the EPA. They should have cleaned up diesel when they mandated removal of lead from gas. You cannot smell anything coming from the tailpipe of a modern diesel using ULSD. That is all I have run in my Passat after I got it to CA from the Northwest. A gas car smells more than my diesel car. Gasoline still has more sulfur than the BP/ARCO ULSD we get here in CA. Interesting the first 3 letters of "gasoline" are :P
my desire for higher gas prices is actually somewhat selfish. I do want an EV
I could use an EV for 90% of my errands as I rarely go more than 8 miles from home. I can use surface streets almost exclusively if the vehicle will go at least 45 MPH. The CA laws keep you from using the 25 MPH golf cart type vehicles. They are only allowed on streets posted 35 MPH or less. I cannot get out of my subdivision without going on a 45 MPH road. I keep watching the trader for one of the RAV4s that were electric. I doubt people sell them.
I keep watching the trader for one of the RAV4s that were electric. I doubt people sell them.
No, I don't think they sell them. The more I research CA's EV mandate of the 90's the more I change my position on what actually went on. I initially thought that this was some ill conceived legislation forced on the auto manufacturers and the public. I've come to believe there is a lot more to it. It turns out the people using these vehicles absolutely loved them. They weren't allowed to keep them. I provided this link before but I'll give it again.
I'm sure this movie will have some aspects of a Michael Moore soap box diatribe disguised as a documentary. Keeping that in mind it should still expand most people's perspective on the issue.
It turns out the people using these vehicles absolutely loved them.
That is very true. GM would not sell them, only lease. It was too bad that the ones that wanted them could not buy them. They were all sent to the crusher. I don't know if any survived. Toyota did it a little different. I think a few of them are out and about. I would imagine supplying parts was the motivation behind GM's pulling the EV back in. This way they have no liability to deal with. We contributed about a billion dollars to the EV1 R&D, via the Clinton PNGV program.
Of course if you hit a camry with a monster SUV and truck it would be crushed! Then I will crush you in a mack truck? And then you come to me with a M1-Abrams tank! What nonsense?
These SUV owners should be deported to middle-east, there they can drink and eat all the gas they want!
Not only there should be a massive taxation of gas, there should also be massive taxation on weight
(all that extra metal in escalade and suburban and expedition requires massive energy, wastage of steel, mad levels of recycling, trashing of environment, massive pollution during steel production).
There should be massive taxation on size. Those who love hippos can camp near the closest BigMac.
Massive taxation on these hippos who terrorize the safety of compact and mid-size car drivers.
These ecological terrorists should be penalized most heavily. Taxes should be 10$/mile for them.
Those who are not in the construction and transportation business and yet drive LARGE SUVs and PU trucks just "to feel good"
Should be taxed most heavily. These suspects are recklessly consuming and sucking earth's natural resources:
1. Fossil Fuel 2. metals 3. animals for leather 4. more toxic plastics 5. more Carcinogens, deadly chemicals as paints 6. More scrappage 7. More waste 8. More recycling 9. More stinking landfills.
All these hippos should be asked to live in these land fills for a week and let us see if they like it
All these hippos should be asked to live in these land fills for a week and let us see if they like it
How do you really feel about SUVs? I suppose you hate all those gas guzzling sports cars also. Like Porsche, Audi TT, MB SLK & Lexus SC430? I think we should all have to drive a black Civic 4 door. Then I would not need an SUV or PU to have some feeling of being safe while on the highway filled with loonies in CamCords, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee while talking on a stupid cell phone.
BTW, my desire for higher gas prices is actually somewhat selfish.
Time to think outside the box for a moment:
(1) Gas prices not only affect our lives in terms of the money we personally spend on gas. Gas and diesel are also what move goods around the country. Unless we all plan on growing veggie, corn, potato and raise milk cows, beef cattles along with free ranging chicken all in our backyards . . . high transportation cost will have a dramatic effect on our standard of living. Even if we do all that in our own backyards, our standards of living will still plummet simply because few of us can produce enough of everything to feed ourselves without having to kill/enslave our next-door neighbors and take over their land and householder labor in order to compensate for our own lack of farming expertise. Urbanization (and its latter derivative, suburbanization since surburbanites grow grass not food in their yards) over the past 100 years or so has been the result of efficient and low-cost transportation. Making it infeasible to move food and other goods around the country by an exhorbitant transportation tax (which is what gas tax really is) would lead to rapid depopulation of the major cities (and kill mass transit for good, ironicly).
(2) There is a realistic ceiling on gas and diesel price long before the $10/gal mark. Rape seed oil (Canola) can be purchased a little over $3/gal in bulk quantity, and peanut oil is only $5-6/gal. Rudolf invented the original diesel engine to run on peanut oil . . . Yes, running on Canola or even peanut oil in the long run will shorten a modern fuel-injection diesel engine's life, but at $5/gal price difference, a $2000 engine rebuild is only 400 gallons away! Yes, it's ludicrously wasteful to the environment to rebuild engine all the time in order to run cheaper fuel, but that's precisely what people will do. People routinely buy cheaper fuel than their engines call for due to as little as 10-15 cents difference per gallon.
Add to the list of "infidels" and "counter-revolutionaries" also those who waste electricity unnecessarily typing up diatribes on the internet just to make themselves feel good :-)
Drove an electric vehicule, A 106 Peugeot with 20 HP motor 2 years ago. interesting at first but stressful as I saw the battery charge needle drop so quickly despite my snail like pace.
Gas saving must be everybody's effort and not concentrated on a politically uncorrect minority.
I am very much against stigmatizing a specific category of vehicule as it often leads to demagogery, which is something that is too often an occurence in my originating country. I don't like SUV / Trucks personnaly, so i rather adopt a devil's advocate stance.
I support as TPE a simple solution that won't mobilize an army of public servants to control and enforce.
it is true it is not the fairest if road usage is being considered, but we should consider gas as the key issue.
1) Gas prices not only affect our lives in terms of the money we personally spend on gas. Gas and diesel are also what move goods around the country. Unless we all plan on growing veggie, corn, potato and raise milk cows, beef cattles along with free ranging chicken all in our backyards . . . high transportation cost will have a dramatic effect on our standard of living. Even if we do all that in our own backyards, our standards of living will still plummet
Several years back there was a similar thread to this and I was advocating much higher gas taxes. The price at the pump then was under $1.50/gallon and I thought we needed to bring it up to $3. There were many responses like yours of how this would dramatically increase prices for all goods and services and devastate our economy. Well, has it?
I'm not saying that high gas prices don't have an adverse effect on our standard of living I'm just saying that it's not quite as extreme as some would have you believe. Regardless, if we do nothing market conditions will eventually get the price of gas up to what I am advocating. The difference will be that, in this case, we won't have the revenue to mitigate this drag on the economy. Transitioning from our oil based economy is inevitable. We need to ask ourselves, will a managed transition be less painful? I think the answer is definitely yes. Conservation will have to be a part of the plan and the only method that seems to work is higher gas prices. If you have a suggestion that would be just as effective I'd love to hear it.
you: Add to the list of "infidels" and "counter-revolutionaries" also those who waste electricity unnecessarily typing up diatribes on the internet just to make themselves feel good.
me: yes I think some people are too emotional, and don't base their views on facts. Yes it might take slightly more material to make a truck than a car, but in the big scheme of things it is insignificant. If you wanted to look at total energy and material consumption of manufacturing a vehicle one would also have to look at the number of parts needed (how complex the vehicle is), the number of miles those parts were shipped to their assembly point, and then the transportation of that vehicle to its final destination. An analysis like that would probably make any vehicle built in Japan on the "worst" list since they impart all their fuel except nuclear, all their raw materials and then ship most of those vehicles 5,000 - 10,000 miles.
And to address the 2nd part that SUV's and trucks are causing such high consumption; I've previously calculated that if you took away these vehicles and put them in a mid-size car the U.S. could save 2% of their oil consumption. 2% that its. Since the U.S. uses 25% of the world's oil that means you get a One-Time savings of 0.5%. Since the world's usage/demand is growing more like 3% each year this means that you can reduce oil usage, but in 2 months you'd be right at the same current amount, and growing from there.
Any law or conservation program enacted in the U.S. alone will not solve or seriously improve the global energy issue. If we save oil, the price may drop and then there is enough demand in the rest of the world to suck that oil up quickly. You might as well try and save oil by shutting down American industry - no fatories running; wouldn't the other countries of the world like that!
The people of each area of the world is not going to sacrifice so that others can have the resources. God knows many people have never even had anything to sacrifice. There is plenty of demand out there for resources and a better standard of living. As a world we will continue to use energy as it is available and economical to get. The only solution is to increase energy supplies; and fossil fuels, in the increasing quantities needed and desired are not going to last forever. That is why advanced nuclear fusion is the only solution looking out the next few hundred years. The Earth's population might be about 15 bilion by 2100? 25 billion by 2200? I don't think we'll have enough oil, ethanol ... for everyone. Whale oil was a temporary fuel - it is time to move on technologically.
Should be taxed most heavily. These suspects are recklessly consuming and sucking earth's natural resources:
1. Fossil Fuel 2. metals 3. animals for leather 4. more toxic plastics 5. more Carcinogens, deadly chemicals as paints 6. More scrappage 7. More waste 8. More recycling 9. More stinking landfills.
You forgot using animals for food. It isn't necessary to eat animals or animal products to survive. But then, many people are super hypocritical meat eaters who profess to have some concern for the environment.
It is often better to change the diet than the vehicle, although ideally, from the plantary health standpoint, one eliminates animal/animal products and privately-owned vehicles.
many people are super hypocritical meat eaters who profess to have some concern for the environment.
Wise use of animals for food and clothing is part of a balanced environmental agenda. The vegan lifestyle is unhealthy at best.
Not sure it has anything to do with wise use of our fossil fuel. I guess animal fat is a possible solution to our dwindling fossil fuel.
PS If you have a shortage of Coyotes, rabbits and squirrels I can ship you the ones I trap & kill on a daily basis. We are getting overun with them in Southern CA. I would imagine they are a big part of the GHG problem down here. I cannot grow a vegetable garden to maturity without the little pests destroying the plants.
Unfortunately the only car the folks at Commuter Cars have in production cost $108,000. Kind of out of most peoples price range. They show two potential models for a lot less. They have not even been designed to date. I still think batteries are the key to EV success or failure.
Well, it has. This forum has become the most popular thread on Edmunds because someone, a lot of someones, are feeling the pain. It takes a bit of time to propagate through, but trust me, when the housing collapse is fully played out (both as reaction to cost of living increase and rising interest rate to combat the inflation as implied by gas price increases), we will look back to this period as economic devastation, on an order of maganitude comparable to the 1930's and 1970's.
I'm just saying that it's not quite as extreme as some would have you believe.
It all depends on how high. A $1.50 increase is somewhat manageable, but $7/gallon increase would be quite a different ball game. Luckily it won't happen without massive across-board inflation rendering "$10" itself meaningless.
Transitioning from our oil based economy is inevitable.
So is mankind's eventual transition from planet earth . . . transition from free water and free air . . . shall we tax the use of rain water and tax breathing too? I'm sure the fans of managing anything and everything of our lives would love that.
Where do you live? My water bill is higher than gas for my vehicles. I spent $307 for gas in my truck over the last 11 months. My license tags are $301. Insurance is about $900 per year. Gas & diesel is still the cheapest part of owning a vehicle for me.
Our dependence on oil should never end when exploration for new oil fields never end. Negatives opine there is a finite amount of crude, but that can't be said with any authority because those who say it do NOT know how much there is "down there". Attempts to scare others is a "control" position, not authentically generated. These attempts usually spew from financially unsuccessful wanna be leaders in their field who are frustrated with their income status in life. Thus, they, through fear tactics, hope to bring down to their level of economic standards, the risk taking entreprenours and other captains of industry and business. They are usually some form of government employee content with the cocoon of their status quo. Our dependence on oil will continue as long as we continue to invest in exploration equipment and the businesses that support the discovery process.
If you and your six kids drive an SUV. Good on you. You earned it, so enjoy the ride. An SUV with eight gets more passenger miles per gallon than the import with four. And much safer.
you: Negatives opine there is a finite amount of crude,
me: well anyone who acknowledges the earth has a finite size that, should logically assume there is a finite amount of oil. If oil is so prevalent and considering the money that could be made, I'm sure everyone would be drilling into the ground if it was omnipresent.
The market problems do not occur just when we're running the last of the oil out; they occur when demand surpasses logistics. So yes we could have only used 40-50% of the easy to get oil in the ground; the problem can also occur 'when the beer won't come out of the keg fast enough for the people standing around with mugs'. As more people join the party, the less happy everyone's going to be. Our society tries to distribute the supply, by you having the chance to redeem your $'s to get a better spot in line.
Overweight people should have their income tax rate increased by at least 75%.
They're consume more than their fair share of food, and we all know that there are starving children that are in greater need than those overweight SOBs.
And their weight increases medical costs, because of all the health related problems that exist for being obese.
And they cause more gasoline and other fuels to be burned just getting from point A to point B. More weight equals less fuel efficiency.
Not to mention how they take up nearly two seats in any airline flight. How's THAT for rudeness!
Yes, we need to tax those overweight SOBs into losing weight. Oh yes!
You know, we ran into the same problems when we used whale-blubber...
Our demand for whale blubber increased and there were less and less whales to harvest.
But we found an alternative - oil.
This was done without governmental intervention, either. No massive tax increases on whale blubber. No accusations of 'windfall profit' and price gouging levied against the whale blubber providers.
No... Creative entrepeneurs went out and discovered an alternative to whale blubber.
Yet today, the governmental regulations hinder the development of oil alternatives, unless they are supported by the government. Hydrogen and ethanol are the governmental darlings now.
But heaven forbid if you try to make any other alternative work. Coal gasification? Hydrogen Peroxide (Rocket fuel strength)? Methyl Hydrates from the ocean floor?
NO! The government will not help you, and the EPA will come and investigate.
I would be looking at more than just how much I was going to save in gas before jumping into a small fuel efficient car. There is more to owning a car than just gas mileage. Things that come to mind are insurance, depreciation, financing, taxes and fees, fuel, maintenance, repairs, etc.
Using Edmunds True Cost to Own I looked up the Prius 06 model. Then I looked up a 06 Toyota Sienna CE, and then also an 06 Toyota Sequoia SR5.
06 Prius: TCO $38,701 or $.52 per mile. 06 Sienna: TCO $40,297 or $.54 per mile. 06 Sequoia: TCO $ 53,127 or $.71 per mile.
These are over a 5 year period so the per year operating costs (edmunds breaks it down per year, but I will just divide by 5 to make it easy) would be :
Sure if you just focus on the cost of the gas, it would most certainly be less expensive to run a Prius than a larger car. But there is obviously more to the picture to the expenses associated with a car than just gas. Also, you could easily make up the $.02 cents per mile between the minivan and the smaller car but just cutting back on repeat trips (Edmunds used 15k per year driven).
My water bill in San Diego is right at $100 per month. I only used about $1100 in gas & diesel for a whole year in 6 vehicles, including my tractor. The water bill in Hilo Hawaii where it rains all the time averages $180 per month. Mostly electric pumping charges. Electric bill on place in Hawaii close to $500 per month. So you can see that gas and diesel are insignificant in my budget.
I would not buy any gas Mercedes. I really was not that impressed with the GL450. Too much plastic like most other cars today. Had some slick features. $55k without NAV. I probably will wait a few years or buy some used vehicles. Whatever I get will most likely be diesel.
Comments
I like to dream of fancy cars. When it comes time to dip into the old savings I get real practical. If GM builds a smaller Duramax for the SUVs they will be a winner. The current one is too much engine for the Tahoe or Suburban. A V6 Duramax in a Tahoe would have all the torque and power you would need.
High pollution in manufacturing has been documented by Toyota the leading manufacturer of Hybrids. They use the following
1. exotic metals
2. rare earth materials
3. toxic chemicals & materials
4. more PM, SoX, NoX & CO2 during manufacturing process
5. higher recycle costs
I will not be drawn into a tirade of how misrepresented the mileage on these hybrids are. It does affect the actual amount of CO2 that you seem so worried about. If the powers would adopt diesel as the de facto fuel for our cars, trucks and SUVs we could cut both CO2 and fossil fuel usage. We could further cut fossil fuel usage with a realistic use of biodiesel.
I don't think our government over the last 50 years have wanted to do anything that would cut into their tax base. The more we consume the more taxes we pay.
The bottom line is SUVs & PU Trucks are doing more to maintain our roads, bridges etc than these little throwaway cars we are being offered. It is also a fact that the longer a well maintained vehicle lasts the less it pollutes overall. Trucks have a much longer life span than most of todays cars.
Rocky
I'm not sure if you're being consistent here. You attack small fuel efficient vehicles for not paying their share in road taxes yet advocate diesels for being 30% more efficient. In terms of safety these small cars are making the roadways safer for the drivers of large vehicles.
I also don't think that SUVs/Trucks last longer from a mileage perspective. You do see a lot of old trucks on the road but they probably have relatively few miles on them compared to cars built the same year. I know that SUVs from a resale perspective depreciate very rapidly.
Interesting electric vehicle article
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/04/technology/business2_wrightspeed/index.htm
Rocky
I'm not so sure that small cars make it safer for those in an SUV. Many dart in and out of traffic causing others to have accidents. Granted if my PU has an accident with a smaller car I will be less apt to get hurt. This is clearly shown in the Insurance Institutes ratings chart. The Camry and Accord are both significantly more injury prone than a full size PU or a Suburban.
http://www.iihs.org/brochures/ictl/ictl_4dr.html
That's probably true but it isn't the small car that's at fault its the driver. The argument could be made that many drivers of SUVs feel invincible, which leads to complacency. Again, the vehicle's not to blame, the driver is.
You can't rewrite the laws of physics so, with all other things equal, the vehicle with greater mass will be safer. Where does it end? At some point don't you have to say that its big enough. I also think that demographics plays a pretty big role in those loss statistics. If you compare the average driver of a Crown Victoria with a Kia Rio I suspect that there will be some striking differences in the groups. And if you now put all the Crown Vic drivers in Rios and vice versa those numbers would change dramatically.
Your right that very few people can afford a $100k electric 2 seater. I just think its encouraging that research is picking up in this area. I think that we've progressed far enough that the goal now seems clearly attainable.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/04/news/economy/oil_pluggedin_fortune/index.htm
I believe he does by the fact that he is buying more gas per mile. If everyone buys a Prius or Civic hybrid who will pay the taxes to keep the roads up? Right now the hybrids are not paying their fair share.
Seems like a convoluted interpretation of fair share. Civic drivers/owners are "civic" minded in a sense by not being gluttonous in consuming oil. They and owners of similar vehicles could be rewarded by paying a very low yearly vehicle license energy surtax if it were implemented in all states. The revenue from this would be strictly for road building/maintenance and funding research on energy alternatives at US universities.
People would of course still be free to choose to drive any size vehicle they wanted as long as they paid a yearly license energy surtax. Perhaps surtax could be set up on some formula of vehicle weight and engine size. Those that can afford to squander fuel in large vehicles and/or low fuel efficiency can afford the extra taxes. Taxing curve would be exponential, not linear. As example, Civic could pay 100/year, Accord 200/year and Suburban with biggest V8 might be 1000/year. This would get people's attention to be "very" energy concious about selecting their next vehicle, would contribute to road const/mtce and would fund research on energy.
I recently read that fuel consumption was down 0.6% from last year. That doesn't sound like much but typically consumption rises 1 1/2% on a year to year basis. In addition sales of low mpg vehicles have declined significantly in comparison to that of more fuel efficient vehicles. Higher prices at the pump is a proven method for reducing consumption and its effects are immediate. We've tried gas guzzler taxes and CAFE and neither reduced consumption. Often times the simplest approach is the best.
I agree that diesel is the way to go. The Liberty diesel is a start, but it has more engine than it needs thus getting less MPG than it should. GM & Ford are still pushing the SUV's and trucks. For work ok, but for running around town is costly. VW has the right idea with their Jetta TDI's but need a station wagon. I don't see why they couldn't make small SUV that get mileage close to the VW's.
What we really need are vehicles that A V E R A G E 3 0 M P G.
You are absolutely right. I would say 99% of all accidents are driver error or carelessness.
I also am happy to see R&D picking up on EVs. I think they suffer a bit of the same bad rap that diesel has. When CA mandated EVs they pushed them onto the public faster than the technology could handle. They got a bad reputation and were scrapped. It cost us billions in research tax dollars. GM did the same thing with early attempts at converting gas engines to diesel. Ethanol is getting the same push that cannot help the cause.
That is the simplest way. It is not necessarily the fairest way. Take the Lexus RX400h vs the RX330. Those two vehicles are about as equal as you can get. Yet the RX400h pays 25-35% less gas tax than the RX330 driver. We are talking about dollars to keep our roads and bridges in good condition. Why should the guy that has the extra bucks to buy a hybrid get off cheaper using the highways? Same goes for the Civic vs the Civic hybrid.
I understand what you're saying but its possible that the people paying less in fuel taxes are holding gas prices down for those that pay the most in fuel taxes. What if all the people currently paying less in fuel taxes started consuming more fuel so that they were now paying about the same. What would that do to the price at the pump?
I'm not opposed to a pay for use system when it comes to maintaining our roadways but I suspect that it will need to be completely overhauled in the future. With the current gas tax system EVs will pay nothing to use the roads. Plug-in hybrids will pay next to nothing. Right now their numbers aren't big enough to make much of an impact but that will eventually change. I think we should still have a gas tax but it should be not be viewed as a maintenance fee. It should be viewed the same as the tax on a pack of cigarettes. There should be another fee based purely on miles driven, which goes to road maintenance. Maybe some adjustment based on vehicle weight. Its my understanding that the heavier vehicles account for more road wear but I'm not sure about that.
That has little to do with oil dependency. It does impact our highways and infrastructure. Your point about consumption being less may bring the price down. I don't know if it has much to do with it anymore. I was kind of expecting it to drop soon. Our price just took another 10 cent hit. I do feel sorry for those that are trying to make it here working in low paying jobs. I would hate to have to work for $9 an hour. I passed that wage level 35 years ago.
Hence my rear window sticker: YOUR NOISY DIESEL STINKS
Interesting what the first three letters in "Diesel" are. :P
I still think that there should be a sizeable tax on gasoline. It could come under the heading of a "sin tax". While I don't like the government using taxation to impose their sense of morality on the rest of us I do think that consuming gas is not in the public interest. So in this case I can accept it.
BTW, my desire for higher gas prices is actually somewhat selfish. I do want an EV and I think the higher the gas prices the sooner it will happen.
I could use an EV for 90% of my errands as I rarely go more than 8 miles from home. I can use surface streets almost exclusively if the vehicle will go at least 45 MPH. The CA laws keep you from using the 25 MPH golf cart type vehicles. They are only allowed on streets posted 35 MPH or less. I cannot get out of my subdivision without going on a 45 MPH road. I keep watching the trader for one of the RAV4s that were electric. I doubt people sell them.
http://www.streetrodproductions.com/barkart.php
No, I don't think they sell them. The more I research CA's EV mandate of the 90's the more I change my position on what actually went on. I initially thought that this was some ill conceived legislation forced on the auto manufacturers and the public. I've come to believe there is a lot more to it. It turns out the people using these vehicles absolutely loved them. They weren't allowed to keep them. I provided this link before but I'll give it again.
http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=12796
I'm sure this movie will have some aspects of a Michael Moore soap box diatribe disguised as a documentary. Keeping that in mind it should still expand most people's perspective on the issue.
That is very true. GM would not sell them, only lease. It was too bad that the ones that wanted them could not buy them. They were all sent to the crusher. I don't know if any survived. Toyota did it a little different. I think a few of them are out and about. I would imagine supplying parts was the motivation behind GM's pulling the EV back in. This way they have no liability to deal with. We contributed about a billion dollars to the EV1 R&D, via the Clinton PNGV program.
http://www.ev1.org/
Of course if you hit a camry with a monster SUV and truck it would be crushed! Then I will crush you in a mack truck? And then you come to me with a M1-Abrams tank! What nonsense?
These SUV owners should be deported to middle-east, there they can drink and eat all the gas they want!
there should also be massive taxation on weight
(all that extra metal in escalade and suburban and expedition requires massive energy, wastage of steel, mad levels of recycling, trashing of environment, massive pollution during steel production).
There should be massive taxation on size. Those who love hippos can camp near the closest BigMac.
Massive taxation on these hippos who terrorize the safety of compact and mid-size car drivers.
These ecological terrorists should be penalized most heavily.
Taxes should be 10$/mile for them.
Should be taxed most heavily. These suspects are recklessly consuming and sucking earth's natural resources:
1. Fossil Fuel
2. metals
3. animals for leather
4. more toxic plastics
5. more Carcinogens, deadly chemicals as paints
6. More scrappage
7. More waste
8. More recycling
9. More stinking landfills.
All these hippos should be asked to live in these land fills for a week and let us see if they like it
How do you really feel about SUVs? I suppose you hate all those gas guzzling sports cars also. Like Porsche, Audi TT, MB SLK & Lexus SC430? I think we should all have to drive a black Civic 4 door. Then I would not need an SUV or PU to have some feeling of being safe while on the highway filled with loonies in CamCords, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee while talking on a stupid cell phone.
Time to think outside the box for a moment:
(1) Gas prices not only affect our lives in terms of the money we personally spend on gas. Gas and diesel are also what move goods around the country. Unless we all plan on growing veggie, corn, potato and raise milk cows, beef cattles along with free ranging chicken all in our backyards . . . high transportation cost will have a dramatic effect on our standard of living. Even if we do all that in our own backyards, our standards of living will still plummet simply because few of us can produce enough of everything to feed ourselves without having to kill/enslave our next-door neighbors and take over their land and householder labor in order to compensate for our own lack of farming expertise. Urbanization (and its latter derivative, suburbanization since surburbanites grow grass not food in their yards) over the past 100 years or so has been the result of efficient and low-cost transportation. Making it infeasible to move food and other goods around the country by an exhorbitant transportation tax (which is what gas tax really is) would lead to rapid depopulation of the major cities (and kill mass transit for good, ironicly).
(2) There is a realistic ceiling on gas and diesel price long before the $10/gal mark. Rape seed oil (Canola) can be purchased a little over $3/gal in bulk quantity, and peanut oil is only $5-6/gal. Rudolf invented the original diesel engine to run on peanut oil . . . Yes, running on Canola or even peanut oil in the long run will shorten a modern fuel-injection diesel engine's life, but at $5/gal price difference, a $2000 engine rebuild is only 400 gallons away! Yes, it's ludicrously wasteful to the environment to rebuild engine all the time in order to run cheaper fuel, but that's precisely what people will do. People routinely buy cheaper fuel than their engines call for due to as little as 10-15 cents difference per gallon.
http://www.commutercars.com/
Drove an electric vehicule, A 106 Peugeot with 20 HP motor 2 years ago. interesting at first but stressful as I saw the battery charge needle drop so quickly despite my snail like pace.
I am very much against stigmatizing a specific category of vehicule as it often leads to demagogery, which is something that is too often an occurence in my originating country. I don't like SUV / Trucks personnaly, so i rather adopt a devil's advocate stance.
I support as TPE a simple solution that won't mobilize an army of public servants to control and enforce.
it is true it is not the fairest if road usage is being considered, but we should consider gas as the key issue.
Several years back there was a similar thread to this and I was advocating much higher gas taxes. The price at the pump then was under $1.50/gallon and I thought we needed to bring it up to $3. There were many responses like yours of how this would dramatically increase prices for all goods and services and devastate our economy. Well, has it?
I'm not saying that high gas prices don't have an adverse effect on our standard of living I'm just saying that it's not quite as extreme as some would have you believe. Regardless, if we do nothing market conditions will eventually get the price of gas up to what I am advocating. The difference will be that, in this case, we won't have the revenue to mitigate this drag on the economy. Transitioning from our oil based economy is inevitable. We need to ask ourselves, will a managed transition be less painful? I think the answer is definitely yes. Conservation will have to be a part of the plan and the only method that seems to work is higher gas prices. If you have a suggestion that would be just as effective I'd love to hear it.
me: yes I think some people are too emotional, and don't base their views on facts. Yes it might take slightly more material to make a truck than a car, but in the big scheme of things it is insignificant. If you wanted to look at total energy and material consumption of manufacturing a vehicle one would also have to look at the number of parts needed (how complex the vehicle is), the number of miles those parts were shipped to their assembly point, and then the transportation of that vehicle to its final destination. An analysis like that would probably make any vehicle built in Japan on the "worst" list since they impart all their fuel except nuclear, all their raw materials and then ship most of those vehicles 5,000 - 10,000 miles.
And to address the 2nd part that SUV's and trucks are causing such high consumption; I've previously calculated that if you took away these vehicles and put them in a mid-size car the U.S. could save 2% of their oil consumption. 2% that its. Since the U.S. uses 25% of the world's oil that means you get a One-Time savings of 0.5%. Since the world's usage/demand is growing more like 3% each year this means that you can reduce oil usage, but in 2 months you'd be right at the same current amount, and growing from there.
Any law or conservation program enacted in the U.S. alone will not solve or seriously improve the global energy issue. If we save oil, the price may drop and then there is enough demand in the rest of the world to suck that oil up quickly. You might as well try and save oil by shutting down American industry - no fatories running; wouldn't the other countries of the world like that!
The people of each area of the world is not going to sacrifice so that others can have the resources. God knows many people have never even had anything to sacrifice. There is plenty of demand out there for resources and a better standard of living. As a world we will continue to use energy as it is available and economical to get. The only solution is to increase energy supplies; and fossil fuels, in the increasing quantities needed and desired are not going to last forever. That is why advanced nuclear fusion is the only solution looking out the next few hundred years. The Earth's population might be about 15 bilion by 2100? 25 billion by 2200? I don't think we'll have enough oil, ethanol ... for everyone. Whale oil was a temporary fuel - it is time to move on technologically.
Or thermally depolymerized.
Should be taxed most heavily. These suspects are recklessly consuming and sucking earth's natural resources:
1. Fossil Fuel
2. metals
3. animals for leather
4. more toxic plastics
5. more Carcinogens, deadly chemicals as paints
6. More scrappage
7. More waste
8. More recycling
9. More stinking landfills.
You forgot using animals for food. It isn't necessary to eat animals or animal products to survive. But then, many people are super hypocritical meat eaters who profess to have some concern for the environment.
It is often better to change the diet than the vehicle, although ideally, from the plantary health standpoint, one eliminates animal/animal products and privately-owned vehicles.
The Eshel and Martin full text of the diet vs. car and global warming paper is here:
http://laweekly.blogs.com/judith_lewis/files/diet_energy_and_global_warming-1.pd- f
Wise use of animals for food and clothing is part of a balanced environmental agenda. The vegan lifestyle is unhealthy at best.
Not sure it has anything to do with wise use of our fossil fuel. I guess animal fat is a possible solution to our dwindling fossil fuel.
PS
If you have a shortage of Coyotes, rabbits and squirrels I can ship you the ones I trap & kill on a daily basis. We are getting overun with them in Southern CA. I would imagine they are a big part of the GHG problem down here. I cannot grow a vegetable garden to maturity without the little pests destroying the plants.
And PLEASE do not turn this into "I don't like SUVs why do you?" That's not the subject here.
Well, it has. This forum has become the most popular thread on Edmunds because someone, a lot of someones, are feeling the pain. It takes a bit of time to propagate through, but trust me, when the housing collapse is fully played out (both as reaction to cost of living increase and rising interest rate to combat the inflation as implied by gas price increases), we will look back to this period as economic devastation, on an order of maganitude comparable to the 1930's and 1970's.
I'm just saying that it's not quite as extreme as some would have you believe.
It all depends on how high. A $1.50 increase is somewhat manageable, but $7/gallon increase would be quite a different ball game. Luckily it won't happen without massive across-board inflation rendering "$10" itself meaningless.
Transitioning from our oil based economy is inevitable.
So is mankind's eventual transition from planet earth . . . transition from free water and free air . . . shall we tax the use of rain water and tax breathing too? I'm sure the fans of managing anything and everything of our lives would love that.
Where do you live? My water bill is higher than gas for my vehicles. I spent $307 for gas in my truck over the last 11 months. My license tags are $301. Insurance is about $900 per year. Gas & diesel is still the cheapest part of owning a vehicle for me.
If you and your six kids drive an SUV. Good on you. You earned it, so enjoy the ride. An SUV with eight gets more passenger miles per gallon than the import with four. And much safer.
Come on! If you want a Mercedes SUV... you HAVE to get the Mercedes G500, not the GL!
That's a real SUV.
And you can even get an AMG variant of it.
:P
me: well anyone who acknowledges the earth has a finite size that, should logically assume there is a finite amount of oil.
The market problems do not occur just when we're running the last of the oil out; they occur when demand surpasses logistics. So yes we could have only used 40-50% of the easy to get oil in the ground; the problem can also occur 'when the beer won't come out of the keg fast enough for the people standing around with mugs'. As more people join the party, the less happy everyone's going to be. Our society tries to distribute the supply, by you having the chance to redeem your $'s to get a better spot in line.
Overweight people should have their income tax rate increased by at least 75%.
They're consume more than their fair share of food, and we all know that there are starving children that are in greater need than those overweight SOBs.
And their weight increases medical costs, because of all the health related problems that exist for being obese.
And they cause more gasoline and other fuels to be burned just getting from point A to point B. More weight equals less fuel efficiency.
Not to mention how they take up nearly two seats in any airline flight. How's THAT for rudeness!
Yes, we need to tax those overweight SOBs into losing weight. Oh yes!
:shades:
Geez!
I pay about $28/month.
Can you tell me where you live, so I can avoid it?
:surprise:
Our demand for whale blubber increased and there were less and less whales to harvest.
But we found an alternative - oil.
This was done without governmental intervention, either. No massive tax increases on whale blubber. No accusations of 'windfall profit' and price gouging levied against the whale blubber providers.
No... Creative entrepeneurs went out and discovered an alternative to whale blubber.
Yet today, the governmental regulations hinder the development of oil alternatives, unless they are supported by the government. Hydrogen and ethanol are the governmental darlings now.
But heaven forbid if you try to make any other alternative work. Coal gasification? Hydrogen Peroxide (Rocket fuel strength)? Methyl Hydrates from the ocean floor?
NO! The government will not help you, and the EPA will come and investigate.
Using Edmunds True Cost to Own I looked up the Prius 06 model. Then I looked up a 06 Toyota Sienna CE, and then also an 06 Toyota Sequoia SR5.
06 Prius: TCO $38,701 or $.52 per mile.
06 Sienna: TCO $40,297 or $.54 per mile.
06 Sequoia: TCO $ 53,127 or $.71 per mile.
These are over a 5 year period so the per year operating costs (edmunds breaks it down per year, but I will just divide by 5 to make it easy) would be :
06 Prius: 7,740
06 Sienna: 8,059
06 Sequoia: 10,625
Sure if you just focus on the cost of the gas, it would most certainly be less expensive to run a Prius than a larger car. But there is obviously more to the picture to the expenses associated with a car than just gas. Also, you could easily make up the $.02 cents per mile between the minivan and the smaller car but just cutting back on repeat trips (Edmunds used 15k per year driven).